...like overalls...

But yes, I love my shirt-pocket. It has served me so well, and perhaps I'll get it a nice pocket protector as a treat. All I need is a slide-rule and I'm a nerd from the 70's. Home sweet home.

Today was hell. The only saving grace was that I got paid for my first full week (I thought it was just a part time gig, but when you add up the actual hours, it's a little more that 3/4 time). And even though the Gov'ment took a huge chunk of my hard earned money for silly things like Medicare and Social Security, it's nice to be rewarded. But, boy, did I have to work for that money today. I don't know what it was today. Perhaps it was a particularly exciting weekend with Father's Day and all. Perhaps there was too much sugar in their canned peaches. I don't know, but they were horrible. Absolutely horrible. I did a lot of yelling and pointing. A lot of time-outs in the corner and "this is your special chair. You will sit in this chair for the rest of class. I don't want to hear you talk. At all." At which point I would drag the chair to the farthest corner. At one point, the youngest group took their customary bathroom/water break during my class (I've learned to schedule in this disruption), leaving only 4 students in the room with me. They decided it would be a good idea to hide under the desks and yell surprise when the other kids came back. I told them several times "no". I even physically "removed" them from under the desks. But they would not be denied their surprise. I'll leave the ensuing screaming, shouting, running and punching to your imagination (no, I did not punch any of the kids. Not to say I didn't think about it).
Today we did chromatography with paper towels and various pens and markers. I had the older groups in the morning, which was inspiring, if not a little messy. They understood the whole deal with polarity and travel distances along the chromatography strip. Even the younger 1st/2nd graders understood it to a certain extent. But, damn, was this messy. I thought, okay, markers are pretty clean. Ha, I have so much to learn. Because the instruction "just dip the tip", an illustration on the board, and an up close, one-on-one demo by yours truly is simply not clear enough to convey the message "don't dunk the whole thing in the alcohol", the ink went everywhere. I have things to clean up this week. Pretty much every single desk. Goody.
Things to look forward to at the end of the week:
We'll be starting biology, with adaptation and evolution games at the end of the week. Haven't done this since Bio Honors with Liem in 9th grade, but I think I remember everything.
Friday we have an open house, for which I must prepare a video of sorts, and some other presentation of sorts. Followed immediately by a sleepover for the older kids. Luckily most of my kids aren't sleeping over (thank god. I guess they came to the same realization that sleeping in a cafeteria is not fun. I know what they drop on the floor. And I know no one mops the floor either). I'm told I'm not supposed to sleep since I'm chaperoning. We'll see how that goes. As long as I can find an internet connection, I think I can manage. Either that or I can spend my time tormenting the kids. I have a black hooded cape and scary masks. I'm sure I can think of something to do. Don't worry, it's nearly impossible for little kids to have heart attacks. They have been known to wet themselves though.
You can fit a bag of apples in your shirt pocket? How many apples is that? I wanna see a picture of that.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if these kids behave this way during the regular school year or if they're just behaving this way because this is a summer camp, so they're not taking it seriously.
I was just thinking you'd feel pretty bad if you scared someone and he died on the spot from a heart attack. Would you be charged with involuntary manslaughter?